ON-DUTY OFFICER, DOG DIE IN ROLLOVER CRASH

An on-duty officer with the state corrections department and his canine partner were killed Monday morning in a rollover crash on state Route 79 near Warner Springs.

Sgt. Gil Cortez, 46, worked in the investigative services unit at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco and was a 22-year veteran of the state prisons force, said Luis Patiño of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The crash was reported at 7:20 a.m. about a half-mile south of San Felipe Road, the California Highway Patrol said. A portion of the highway was closed for more than seven hours while the crash was investigated. It reopened about 2:55 p.m.

Cortez was the lead car in a line of five corrections vehicles carrying dogs that were headed to La Cima Conservation Camp in Julian to conduct drug searches, Patiño said. The facility is a training fire camp for inmates.

For unknown reasons, Cortez lost control of his Crown Victoria and veered to the left, where the car hit dirt and rocks before flipping several times and landing upright on its wheels in the middle of the road, CHP Officer Brian Pennings said.

The officers who were following ran to the car and extricated him.

He was taken to a fire station to be airlifted to a hospital, but he died before he could be transported, Pennings said.

Cortez’s dog, Mattie, died at the scene, Patiño said.

Pennings said the car was traveling near the posted 55 mph speed limit on a straight stretch of the highway when the crash occurred.

Cortez, who lived in Eastvale, is survived by his parents, his wife and two children.

He became a state corrections officer in 1991 and had been working at the Norco prison since 2001. He joined the investigative services unit in 2011.